2,000 Washington State Students Report Signs of Swine Flu

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

Published: September 6, 2009

At least 2,000 students at Washington State University have reported symptoms of the H1N1 flu virus, university and local health officials said, in what appeared to be one of the largest outbreaks of the virus on a college campus.

''It's real,'' Sally Redman, a registered nurse who works in student health services at Washington State, said Saturday. ''We've had a constant stream of people.''

So far, the cases at the university have been relatively mild, although at least two people in the area who are not students were hospitalized. The university, based in Pullman, in eastern Washington near the Idaho border, has about 19,000 students at its main campus.

Ms. Redman said the outbreak appeared about Aug. 21, during fraternity and sorority rush but before classes started. After that, she said, ''it was rampant.''

As many as 200 students a day have visited or called student health services, reporting sore throats, fevers as high as 104 degrees, muscle aches and coughs.

Dr. Timothy J. Moody, the public health officer for Whitman County, which includes Pullman, said that after a few sample tests at the university were found to be positive for swine flu, students with similar symptoms were also classified as having the virus. He noted that since the spring, nearly all influenza viruses tested from people nationwide with flu symptoms had been H1N1.

In most cases, Washington State students have been told to stay home, rest and take fever-reducing medication. They are not to attend class until at least 24 hours after they have had no fever without taking fever-reducing medication. The university does not have a quarantine program in place, as some other universities do, Ms. Redman said.

The reports from Washington State follow a survey by the American College Health Association, based on data collected from 165 universities in the United States through Aug. 28, that said just over 2,000 students on college campuses nationwide had reported being affected by flulike symptoms.

Dr. Moody said he believed other college campuses that start classes later this month could report outbreaks as students return. He noted that, in general, young adults have proved more susceptible to the virus than older adults, and that students may be particularly vulnerable because they ''tend to congregate more, they often live in dorms, they share a lot of things.''

Dr. Moody said local health officials had become concerned as the virus spread beyond the campus. Two members of a local family were hospitalized after they showed symptoms, though both had other health complications, Dr. Moody said. He said they had since been released.

Ms. Redman, the nurse, noted that Saturday's football game between Washington State and Stanford, in Pullman, was going forward as planned, though university officials urged people with higher health risks to consider not attending. The athletic department planned to distribute antibacterial hand sanitizer at the game.

Ms. Redman, who has been a nurse at the university for 29 years, said the pace of student flu reports appeared to be slowing somewhat, down to about 140 per day, but that it was unclear whether the outbreak was subsiding or students were simply diagnosing themselves.

''They're motioning to me,'' said Ms. Redman, explaining that she would have to end a telephone interview. ''I've got calls coming in.''